Rolling Hard This Weekend...

I needed a smile headed into the weekend.

School Bound Buddy

Watching your kids grow is one of the greatest and hardest things to do.

You want them to grow, you want them to experience life, you want them to fall down and pick themselves back up, you want them to learn from their mistakes; but you also want them to stay in the moment they are in today.

Jaxson is an incredible kid.  Most days he drives me bat s**t crazy, but it's a crazy I can deal with.  He pushes me farther than anyone has pushed me before; but we both learn more about each other every day.

As we prepare over the next few weeks to settle into our new house, which will hopefully be the last move we make for sometime, in the small town of Jefferson, Maryland; I can help but be beyond ecstatic to see Jax sign up for his new elementary school.

Crazy to think that my little buddy will be in "big-guy" school in a few months; but if I had to pick a school and a town for him to start his adventure, this would be the one.  

Faking a smile outside his new school

First time eating in his new cafeteria

Open For Business, Maybe Not...

The idea:  Robyn and I will have a garage sale to get rid of some of the things we have acquired over the years before we move to our new house in a few weeks.  Jaxson had the great idea to have a lemonade stand to make some extra cash for his piggy bank.  Win-win situation, right?

The reality:  Robyn and I woke up early.  Set everything out.  Organized and priced the items.  Waited thirty minutes, maybe, and decided to box everything up and take to GoodWill.  We had zero customers.  Jaxson had one; however, he wasn't there when she came by to buy some lemonade and make his first sale.  Business Fail 101.

Total profit for our garage sale / lemonade stand:  $0

Business can be cruel to small businesses...he did have one customer; but she never paid and kept drinking all the profits...

I Started Running...

The family that runs together, stays together.

The last week in our house has been a constant hub of activity.  Three races, two states, and two runners later; we can now take a deep breath and enjoy our accomplishments.

Robyn is now an official runner.  Knocking out her first 5k has opened her eyes to the world of running and the sense of proud a runner feels after finishing a race you have trained for.  

I would love to pass this new found passion onto our kiddos.  To run, you don't need much.  All you need is your own two feet and a desire to challenge yourself.  You can't cheat in running.  You either do it or you don't - it's that simple.

Congrats Robbie on your run; now it's time to push yourself past your comfort level and experience even more joys of running.

I Paid To Do This?

Not sure why.  Can't figure it out.  Baffled.  Stumped.  Curious, why my thick head fell in love with long distance running...whatever it is; I'm glad the bug got to me.

Two marathons and six half-marathons later; I want more.

This past weekend I ran the Gettysburg North-South Marathon.  Toughest race I have ever run (except maybe the half-marathon I ran with a small case of the beer-flu...not recommended.  Pizza and beer the night before was the wrong fuel for that race).

Gettysburg was full of hills (big hills), temperatures in the mid-seventies by finish time (which is very hot for a race) and the fact that I didn't feel my training had prepared me...I thought wrong.

3 hours and 58 minutes after the gun went off, I was done.  Two minutes under my goal time. Big smiles.

Best part of it all, I am set to run another half-marathon this Sunday at the Frederick Running Festival.

The picture above is why I do the races.  

I hope to show my kids that you can do whatever you want in life. Hard work and commitment is the only way - no short cuts in life.